Where Are The Gigabyte GA-N680SLI-DQ6 Motherboards?

[Fallen Kell]

Originally posted by: bka4u2c
I had the same problem when I went from 2GB to 4GB with Vista 64. I had to remove the additional 2GB and install patch 929777 from Microsoft. It addresses the BSOD when you install 3GB or more on Vista. After I installed that patch everything was fine after I added the additional 2GB. So now I have that patch along with a few others slipstreamed in my Vista install DVD so I don't have to bother with removing the additional memory when I do a fresh install.

I don't remember having to install that patch to get my 4GB of RAM working with Vista64 Ultimate. I built the system with installing all the RAM at once and then proceeded to install Vista64 on it for the first time. No swapping of RAM needed to my memory. I have even done a complete re-install at least once already (long story short, never load the Nvidia Beta drivers...).

 

[BrianDickens]

Originally posted by: Fallen Kell
I don't remember having to install that patch to get my 4GB of RAM working with Vista64 Ultimate. I built the system with installing all the RAM at once and then proceeded to install Vista64 on it for the first time. No swapping of RAM needed to my memory. I have even done a complete re-install at least once already (long story short, never load the Nvidia Beta drivers...).

According to the Knowledge Base article, the 4gb problem only occurs in some specific circumstances. Seems like your system doesn't meet this 'requirement'

 

[jaggerwild]

Hey Blazer I'm having a hard time setting up the raid, will not go past loading XP I can load the drives(giga-raid). Can you post you bios settings for me or PM me to let me know. I have set up raids before but this thing has so many options, very confusing.
Or anybody, just joined but don't want to read this whole thread through. I almost have already......

Thank you !






jaggerwild/Dorth Star

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Oooops my bad. I think I should just go and have my eyes checked

Still you should disconnect all drives but the floppy and clear your BIOS. Upon first boot you should again try to update your primary BIOS to ver FA. After that start connecting your drives one by one to see if the problem is generated by any of them.

I disconencted all the drives, loaded FA on both the main and the backup bios. Restarted. Set the settings to optimized defaults. Restarted. Reconnected all of the drives one by one. Reset all of my settings (basically password, no logo, +0.4v to RAM).

The problem wasnt generated by any of the drives, but after I had connected them and then booted into GRUB and then Windows server 2003 enterprise x64 r2 sp2 (How many freaking versions does server have?!), windows hung at the black screen.

THen I pushed the reset button, and after that, the nvidia raid bios thing popped up.

Then I reset again, booted into GRUB into Ubuntu worked fine. Reboot, booted into GRUB into Vista, worked fine. Reboot, booted into GRUB into Server 2003, worked fine.

Im at a loss.

 

[jaggerwild]

Hello Eateryofpiza.
Sorry for not giving more info, I do boot into windows fine with only one disk as primary. I have tried every combo there is and there are many(and will try your ideal too)! All it does after loading the raid drivers is get to the windows option screen the if i hit enter it says"no disks found".
So here's my spec's and thanks again for all and any help, one last question. Where do i get the FA bios(I'll search the posting).

Case Thermaltake Kandalf LCS
Two sticks of 800Mhz 2 gig G-Skill
4 Werstern digital Caviers 160gig SATA2 7,200
GA-N680SLI-DQ6 rev2
8800GTS320mb

Thank you!


for got my processor C2D E6750

OS WINDOWS XP PRO

 

[EateryOfPiza]

Originally posted by: jaggerwild
Hello Eateryofpiza.
Sorry for not giving more info, I do boot into windows fine with only one disk as primary. I have tried every combo there is and there are many(and will try your ideal too)! All it does after loading the raid drivers is get to the windows option screen the if i hit enter it says"no disks found".
So here's my spec's and thanks again for all and any help, one last question. Where do i get the FA bios(I'll search the posting).

Case Thermaltake Kandalf LCS
Two sticks of 800Mhz 2 gig G-Skill
4 Werstern digital Caviers 160gig SATA2 7,200
GA-N680SLI-DQ6 rev2
8800GTS320mb

Thank you!

My situtation is not with any windows raid drivers, but rather it is with the nVidia onboard raid configuration. when the computer boots up before it even gets into windows, the nVidia onboard raid bios attempts to detect any raid arrays it is connected to. Since I do not use raid, it should not find any, but on mine, it (somtimes) just hangs there.

I am using a total of 7 drives: 3 SATA HDD, 1 SATA DVDRW, 1 IDE DVD Reader, 5 IDE HDD. The 3 SATA HDD + 1 SATA DVDRW are on the nvidia controller, 1 ide HDD + 1 IDE DVD Reader is on the nvidia controller, and 4 IDE HDD are on a separate Promise Technology UltraATX133 expansion card.

 

[Blazer7]

Mr jaggerwild,

sorry for replying so late but I couldn't access the forums !?! Did anyone else experienced problems entering the forums ?

Anyway, welcome to our little thread. What kind of RAID are you interested in ? Which controller are you gonna use, nVidia's or any of the 2 Gigabytes ? What HDs are you gonna use (make, model) ? The FA BIOS is official and you can download it straight from Gigabyte's site.

http://www.giga-byte.com.tw/Su...el.aspx?ProductID=2553

The FA is the only official BIOS for the rev 2 board so far and all rev 2 boards come with this BIOS pre-installed. If you don't have problems with your board there is no reason for you to re-flash your BIOS. You can find a link for the latest beta BIOS for your board (FBb) on page 61.

Mr EateryOfPiza,

this does not make sense. I had a problem once with one of my RAIDs vanishing without warning but this was caused by a defective SATA cable that could not lock into place properly and was getting loose every now and then. I doubt that your problem has anything to do with cables though. Just keep us posted on how you are doing.

 

[jaggerwild]

Hello Mr Blazer! And Thank you for the welcome!
OK, this is what i have
:GA-N680SLI-DQ6-rev2
4 Western digital HD'S Caveirs 160gig 7,200rpm SATA2's
C2D E6750
EVGA 8800GTS320MB
Windows XP PRO

I set this up strictly for First person shooter(4 disks Raid0+1 preferred), i will use it for other stuff but mainly gaming.My HD'S are plugged into SATAII0,SATAII1,SATAII2,and SATAII3.
Yes this bios is FA, none others. I have setup raids before, I know now and then there quirky too.
I've tried some known and some unknown setups to get the Raid up and running. I know not to bother with the giga-sata's as there mainly for external HD's, at this point thinking of trying it anyways( but i have read it's slower on the read writes than the NV SATA controller).
SO these are the combo's I have tried, also right now it's up and running straight on one of the disks no raid.
I followed the instructions verbatim, I build the raid set it to boot clear the disks, then reboot. Comes up no problems then in bios I set the bootable card in the first boot devise setting and the raid second(again no problems).
reboot and re-enter bios to make sure it didn't move stuff as it sometimes will switch first boot seatings (no problems).
OK, so on with the install booting from disk, Nvidia raid drivers a floppy and ready to go. hit F6 when prompted NP. The third party screen comes up I load both drivers from floppy(NP).Then hit enter to continue the install, gets to the what do you want to do screen with the load windows or fix window or escape. I hit load windows, then it reports back "NO DISKS FOUND please hit F3 to exit"? Kinda frustrated right now ( playing a lil BF2 takes my edge off .
Not sure as to what else to mention, except in the integrated peripherals I've also tried to leave theNV-serial ATA control off and on. Also tried leaving the disks disabled and enabled. Sorry this is a book but trying to give ass much info as possible. I have tried to disconnect all disks also, but have no problem "setting up raid" just getting Windows to see the dang thing is my problem.
one lasting thing I noticed is that sometimes when I'm in the bios and hit F9 it will show an extra option in the bios screen not sure what it is for but i noticed that there will be 14 options in the bios menu rather than the 13 that are normally there.

 

[KillerG]

Hi All,

Posted some time back on set-up and OC performance of my PC. Well I?m back looking for support as I did months ago and all information I pulled from the site was great and have been enjoying my dream machine ever since. Well that dream stopped a few days ago and my PC will not shut down now. I had remembered back when I first set-up of some of you guys having this problem and felt lucky that I never did with the F3 or F4 bios. Well now all of sudden it won?t shutdown and I cannot find any reason for it suspected Vistax64 at first, but I'm duel booted with x32 and same issue no shut down. Have tried multiple bios changes; Safe, optimal last known good, ones I used before that worked to no avail. Not real happy at this point and anyone who has fixed or figured this out please let me know.

Yes I do know that the Rev1 board is prone to this, but why would it just start doing this without rhyme or reason?

 

[Blazer7]

Mr jaggerwild,

I've never set up a RAID 10 with this board but this should be a straight forward procedure. Sometimes when I was trying to load both nVidia's drivers from a floppy during XP installation, XP would accept only the first driver I loaded and ignore the second. This gave me some trouble at the beginning. After this, I went with the installation of only nVidia's RAID driver. I believe that your problem is driver related and nothing more. I suggest that you download the latest RAID driver from Gigabyte's site. I'm sure that they have exactly what you need in order to prepare a floppy for XP installation. After pressing F6 during windows install, load only nVidia's RAID driver, nothing else. I hope this helps.

Mr KillerG,

You should update your BIOS to the F5b or F5e beta. I think that this will resolve your shutdown issue. You can find a link for the F5b in one of Gary?s posts on page 46 and a link for the F5e in another of Gary?s posts on page 59.

 

[jaggerwild]

Mr Blazer,
Hello and Thank you for the reply. I have done that and it goes through NP, then when i get to the "load windows screen" with choices of: load windows, repair windows or reboot . I hit load windows, and it reports back "no devices found". I've tried every combo known to man(with the options menu) this is very frustrating as I have done raid arrays before.
Never had problems except bad cables(my fault), these are all brand new the bios See's the HD'S.
Again thank you and any more thoughts you might have would be greatly appreciated.



JAGGERWILD

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Evening Mr. Jagger.

I have been following your postings, and the excellent advice offered by Mr. Blazer. However, it would appear that the "no devices found" response is indicative of not having the proper settings in your CMOS setup and/or the RAID setup utility.

As a basic proposition, the WinXP OS needs to have hardware drivers loaded as part of the initial install process in order for the OS to "talk" to the hardware. Since you have stated that you are using SATA hard drives, that means that you need to load BOTH the nVidia basic storage driver AND the RAID driver. Neither of these drivers are native to WinXP and so without you properly loading them, the OS cannot "see" those hardware devices.

Make sure you have the latest drivers. I would recommend extracting those drivers from the latest nVidia combined chipset driver. That way you will be sure to have the latest stuff, and since you are using a nVidia 8800 video card, there will be compatibility with the nVidia drivers as well (as best there can be with any nVidia drivers, etc.). On bootup, after the F6 keystroke, you will eventually get to the screen to load the optional drivers. Load the basic SATA storage driver FIRST, then load the SATA RAID driver.

Of course, all of this presumes that you have set the CMOS options to trigger a RAID array in the first place. Aside from setting the basic IDE to RAID, it is also necessary to activate as many of the onboard SATA ports as you are using to RAID as well. And, if you don't plug the SATA cables into the right RAID activated sockets, the drives will never be seen by the OS (make sure to check that carefully).

BTW, you did enter the RAID setup on bootup and designate the drives for the RAID 10 array, and save those settings, didn't you? If not, then you will never be able to load the OS onto a RAID 10 array, since the OS is looking for that array, but since it's not setup correctly, it would never find it.

If you continue to get the "no devices found" response, then you can be fairly sure you don't have something either set correctly or connected correctly. Let us know how you make out after checking on all of that. Best regards. TheBeagle :beer:

 

[jaggerwild]

Hello MR Beagle,
And thank you too.
Yes I get past the raid setup NP, I go through the raid bios np. I set it to boot, in device first boot I put the bootable card first raid second. I enable NVserial ATA controller(all), then the individual SATA's SATAI and SATAII both primary and secondary. I then exit hitting F10 to save then re-enter to make sure it doesn't move the boot device as some do then hit F10 again letting it boot the CD hitting F6 a million times(lol) then load the raid drivers(both) after hitting the S key then hitting enter to continue the install, then boom no device found. Today I reloaded new mainboard and video drivers in hopes of finding a cure went from 162.18 video to 163.67 Beta drivers amd mains were9.53 and are now same but there dated fromDec 2006.
Also I have loaded the drivers from the CD for the raid directly while in XP(hoping this helps). I'm down loading bios shock right now and will reboot soon to try them again, I'll let you know what comes of it(fingers crossed).
Again thank you and any more ideals please keep them coming!!!!










Jaggerwild with new build Dorth Star

 

[KillerG]

Originally posted by: Blazer7
Mr jaggerwild,

I've never set up a RAID 10 with this board but this should be a straight forward procedure. Sometimes when I was trying to load both nVidia's drivers from a floppy during XP installation, XP would accept only the first driver I loaded and ignore the second. This gave me some trouble at the beginning. After this, I went with the installation of only nVidia's RAID driver. I believe that your problem is driver related and nothing more. I suggest that you download the latest RAID driver from Gigabyte's site. I'm sure that they have exactly what you need in order to prepare a floppy for XP installation. After pressing F6 during windows install, load only nVidia's RAID driver, nothing else. I hope this helps.

Mr KillerG,

You should update your BIOS to the F5b or F5e beta. I think that this will resolve your shutdown issue. You can find a link for the F5b in one of Gary?s posts on page 46 and a link for the F5e in another of Gary?s posts on page 59.

Thanks Blazer7 working on now.

 

[Blazer7]

Mr jaggerwild,

Please explain ?bootable card?. What are you using as your primary boot drive ?

Are you sure that you have configured your RAID 10 correctly ?

Does the nV RAID BIOS lists your RAID as a healthy RAID 10 ?



Mr KillerG,

Glad to hear that you are doing well. Keep it up. :thumbsup:

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Evening Again Everyone.

That's an excellent question Mr. Blazer. Does the POST indeed show a healthy RAID array as part of the bootup screens. If not, then that's the source of the problem. The ONLY source for initial loading of drivers in WinXP is a 1.44 floppy (at least that I know of). In Vista, you can use all kinds of sources to feed the drivers to the OS.

The mention of Vista brings up another possible method to check out the problem. Vista has the necessary WinXP drivers native in the OS. So, again presuming Mr. Jagger has indeed created a valid RAID array (of whatever kind), then Vista should load automatically. If Vista doesn't see the array, then there's definitely something wrong with the array designation and construction.

BTW, does the OS "see" any other type of RAID array, i.e., a RAID 1 array. Try that to see if you can get OS recognition of anything RAID.

Let us know. Best regards. TheBeagle :beer:

 

[KillerG]

Blazer7 Thanks much and all that contribute to this forum. F5e just updated to and now PC is shutting down once again:beer:

 

[BrianDickens]

I wonder, though, still no word from Gigabyte on F5 final. Which I'd like to see sooner rather than later, because I'm still running my QX6850 at 1000mhz FSB instead of 1333mhz... once that is running correctly, I can finally start seeing how far this CPU can overclock with my ThermalTake BigTyp VX120 cooler (quite impressive cooler, it's rather big and its fan is sitting near the side of my case so it has a lot of fresh intake).

 

[Blazer7]

Mr BrianDickens,

You are not the only one wondering about the F5. We were all expecting its release about a month ago. I do not know what?s the story with this BIOS but there may be still a logical explanation for the long delay.

MSI is still to release their BIOS for the new quads but in their site they have the quads and 3 penryn cpus listed as being under testing. We know for a fact that Gigabyte has been working on the F5 for quite sometime now and that Intel has been sampling penryn engineering samples to tier 1 mobo manufacturers for quite sometime also.

The long delay maybe a sign that some companies (MSI, Gigabyte etc) are trying to kill two birds with one stone. Maybe they are trying to release a BIOS that will sport support for penryn cpus also and this is what?s causing the delay. Of course this is just an assumption.

I would love to know what others are thinking about this. Mr Beagle, Gary, anyone ?!?

 

[jaggerwild]

Good after noon all!
Mr Beagle and Mr. Blazer!
Wanted to report back that I now have a raid built, fer chit and giggles I plugged two of the hard drives into the giga-SATA ports and built the raid right in my windows. No problems what so ever, so wanted to thank you both for your attention and the help that you offered me!!!!!!
Not sure if I'll use it as it's a raid0 stripping, again wanted to test it and find out. This also helped me in that when I went to mess with the Bios I turned off the NV serial ATA controller and could not see my remaining other two drives, so this is shedding a lot of light on the other controller.
Any ways this is a great thread to read and I'm up to page 17 from the beginning now, think I'll hang around and read some more. Also I used someone's trick of pulling the "Gigabyte" vanity plate off the north bridge cooler and used a large paper clip to secure an old 5700 fan on to it (worked out perfect) So thank you to the person that POSTED IT!!!!!!
Again great to be here as there is some good stuff to be learned, and THANK YOU ALL for the input and advice that you have thus far given me!!!!!


Jaggerwild

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Evening Everyone.

For the past few weeks, ever since the nVidia 680i chipset drivers (Ver. 15.08) were released, I have been experiencing a problem with the nVidia onboard NICs that are set for Teaming. The Teaming function seems to work OK, but after a while, sometimes just a few hours, sometimes almost a whole day, the NICs will just spontaneously disconnect from the Internet. What is strange is that the NICs do NOT disconnect from my internal home network, just the Internet portion of the network.

I have tested this several times with the same result. No other computer attached to my home network experiences any of this problem, and all the network cables run through the same gigabit switch. I even exchanged the cables in the various ports of the switch to be sure that it was not a network hardware problem.

When I disable the Teaming function, the problem goes away, and there are no further Internet disconnects. The problem almost seems to be some kind of "timeout" or other threshold problem. And once the Internet disconnect occurs, the only way to restore Internet service is to reboot the machine. Once rebooted and restored, the Internet function works just fine (until it happens again). I am running Vista 64 Ultimate, and it otherwise does not give me any network problems whatsoever.

Version 15.08 of the nVidia drivers was the first Vista64 driver set to provide the Teaming function, even though the WinXP drivers had that function and TCP/IP acceleration (which Vista64 still does not have) for quite some time. I am wondering if this is just a software bug in the nVidia driver set, or some other problem. If anyone else has had this Internet disconnect problem with Teaming in a Vista64 setting, I would like to hear about it.

Thanks. TheBeagle :beer:

 

[rt182]

Hey guys

Just wondering if anyone out there uses NV monitor i have 2 XFX 8800 GTX XXX editions in SLI and they say they come clocked at 630 and 1000 mhz on my NV monitor it says the graphics is clocked at 621 and 1000 but everywhere else such as in the NV contol panel it says GPU 630 and 1000 i know its not a big deal or anything but its bugging me a bit do videos cards run slower if they r not under load ??? and also on NV monitor the only two temps that come up are for my two GPU's shouldnt i be able to see CPU temps or anything else

if anyelse knows anything about this programe any advice would be welcom
thanx
Rob

 

[cdfire]

I get the same thing basically. I get the GPU temp but no cpu nor does it give me any voltages.

 

[Sterman]

Finally had to bite the bullet and join the forum. To lead off thanks for all the info thusfar I'm new to overclocking but over the last 3 weeks or so reading message boards and digging up whatever I could find I finally have some input of my own to give back to the best thread I've been able to find on this motherboard.

Beagle I've had the same problem with the NIC just dropping its connection. I'm not teaming anything yet but there does seem to be an intermitant problem with the NIC acting up. At the time I just figured it was my lack of experience at overclocking and I wasn't quite stable yet but perhaps there is something else there.

As to NV control panel not giving you the voltages / temps of the motherboard that is because the gigabyte ga-n680sli-dq6 is not an nvidia reference board with an nvidia reference bios. Evidently Gigabyte has not included the proper hooks in their bios for the NV monitor software to correctly read those settings. Use some other software to monitor temps such as Everest, speedfan or core temp (get the latest beta version or adjust +15C for correct temps). Its a possibility that bios f5 final will have that fixed in the bios if its even on gigabytes things to do list. I've done turned blue holding my breath waiting on this bios release so hopefully it comes out soon.

Currently stuck at 320mhz FSB but it looks like adding .5 volts to the FSB finally got it rock solid... 20 hours on prime95 and counting. Just wish I had thought to up that voltage a couple weeks ago .

Once again thanks for a great thread and keep the good info coming... the people I'm thanking should know who they are (Beagle,Blazer,Gary,etc off the top of my head)

 

[TheBeagle]

Good Morning Mr. Sterman.

Welcome Aboard! I am sure we will enjoy your contributions and comments in the future.

I also posted the item concerning the Teaming disconnect on the nVidia Forum and received a very interesting response from a fellow in the UK. He indicates that he has had the EXACT same problem with his Rev 1 board. So, I guess it's not just my rig that has this problem. Sounds like nVidia has "sold some wine before its time" with the Rev 15.08 chipset drivers. Gary has forwarded the problem onto the NV wiz kids to see if they can fix it. Stay tuned on that one.

However, if you are having intermittent network disconnect without Teaming enabled, then check to be sure you don't have an overheating router and/or switch that is changing values just enough from the thermal load to cause that disconnect to occur. Gigabit switches (Linksys especially) are famous for that symptom, and certain older routers (a/b/g versions of Linksys as well) also have been known to cause that same problem. I had to learn from personal experience that just because it may look "neat" to stack the various Linksys products (modem, router, switch) one on top of the other, with each unit's little feet resting snuggly into the corresponding recesses on the top of the unit below it, that such an arrangement is NOT A GOOD IDEA!! It creates a THERMAL SANDWICH which cooks the hell out of the internal parts in those units.

You are also correct about the Gigabyte BIOS not having the necessary core hooks to properly display certain readings on this N680i board using the nTune/Control Panel utility. Hopefully the GB guys will straighten out that problem when (if?) they ever get the F5 Final BIOS revision out the door. Best regards. TheBeagle :beer: